


The Patch-Up Job

by cheap-perfume-and-gasoline (burning_books)



Category: Leverage
Genre: Brief Description of Injuries, F/M, Injury Recovery, just some good soft Eliot content, nothing too major though, pure self-indulgence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28921425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burning_books/pseuds/cheap-perfume-and-gasoline
Summary: You spend a lot of time fixing Eliot up after his jobs. But this time it goes a little differently than you expect.
Relationships: Eliot Spencer (Leverage)/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	The Patch-Up Job

"Hey, good lookin'," you said with a smirk. It was what you always said when Eliot wandered into your apartment looking beat up. And he definitely looked beat up this time. 

"Hey," he said back, unamused. He never thought it was funny anymore. 

You dropped the joking act, revealing some of your concern in its place. "Are you okay? Nothing that needs stitches?" You looked him over. He had a black eye, a bloody nose, bruises around his throat, and that was just what you could see. Oh, and his hair was curling up. Even with the black eye and bloody nose, he looked especially good with his natural curls. 

"Nothin' that needs stitches," he confirmed, and the knot of worry in your stomach loosened just a little. "I'm not gonna bleed out on ya today."

"Thank goodness. Come on, let's get you cleaned up," you said, taking his hand in yours and leading him through your apartment to your bathroom.

"What happened this time?" you asked, because you always asked.

"Nothin' out of the ordinary. The mark had some goons for me to knock out, and they put up a decent fight." He gave essentially the same answer he always did: vague at best. If something different happened, he'd tell you, but he always left out most of the details. You knew it was to keep you safe (the less you knew, the better), but you still wished he would confide in you. At least you had gotten him to tell you, honestly, what he did for a living. That in itself told you he trusted you more than enough.

Your mind wandered as you gathered together the first aid supplies. There wasn't much you could do about those bruises–they'd pretty much just have to heal on their own–but you could at least get the blood cleaned off his face. 

"Hey, do me a favor and take off your shirt, please?" you asked him gently. "I just want to make sure I don't miss anything."

"Suuure," he said with a wink. He unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it, then pulled his undershirt over his head, a flirty smirk on his lips the whole time. You wanted so bad to kiss him, but, well, you were just friends. He flirted with you, but that was just his personality. You'd flirt back sometimes, but right now you were trying to stay focused on getting him cleaned up. Him being shirtless was making that just a little bit more difficult; no matter how many times you did this it never got easier. 

It took copious amounts of self-control to not give in and kiss him on the spot.

"Alright, now sit," you said, nodding in the direction of the chair you kept in your bathroom specifically for this reason. He settled in, and you grabbed your damp washcloth.

You tipped his chin up, brushed some stray hairs out of his face, and started wiping away the blood under his nose. Your fingertips stayed lightly under his chin, keeping his face tilted up toward you. It was nearly impossible to ignore the way he kept glancing at your lips. 

He was always like this. He'd come to you beaten and broken and you'd swear he didn't even know he was injured from how relentlessly he'd flirt with you the whole time you patched him up. 

You finished cleaning up his face and lightly tapped his nose with your index finger, trying to break the tension. He smiled up at you, perfect as ever. 

"Your eye looks like it seriously hurts."

"It don't hurt that bad-" he protested, but you cut him off. 

"Shut up and stay here." You went and grabbed an ice pack from the freezer in the kitchen and brought it back. 

"Here, hold this on your eye while I finish up with the rest of you." To his credit, he did as he was told, despite his grumbling. "It'll keep it from swelling up too much."

"Don't you have a med school degree yet? With all this fixin' me up you do, you oughta be a doctor by now," he remarked lightly.

"Yeah, if I was a doctor I'd be charging you a lot of money for this patch-up job," you joked back. Then, more seriously: "This'll sting." You swiped an alcohol wipe over a particularly nasty looking cut on his ribcage and Eliot hissed at the pain. "Sorry, I'm done with that one now, just gotta bandage it," you told him.

"It's alright. I appreciate you doin' this for me, it's a helluva lot harder in a mirror." 

"No problem, El," you replied, cutting a piece of gauze for the cut and taping it to his chest. "Any other major injuries I should know about?"

"Actually, yeah, it feels like there's a bad gash on my shoulder blade. Everything else's just bruises."

"Alright, I'm gonna need you to turn around so I can check it out." You stood up and moved back so he could adjust in the chair. 

Your eyes immediately landed on the wound in question and stifled a gasp. "Eliot, holy shit, does that not hurt?" 

He had a long, bloody cut starting at the middle of his left shoulder blade and ending up halfway down his spine. It looked like it should at least sting if not full-on ache. 

"Not really, why?" 

"Maybe because your back is cut in half and you're bleeding pretty bad?!" 

"If it don't hurt bad it's not deep. If it's not deep, it don't need stitches. Start by cleanin' up the blood. I'd bet this one looks worse'n it is." His voice was so level, so calm, despite half his back being painted red and the other half mottled green and purple and yellow. 

He's dealt with this kind of thing far more than you, so you followed his orders and got to cleaning off the blood. Once that was done, you realized he was right - it wasn't much more than a cut. You let out a sigh of relief. You got to work cleaning out the wound and then bandaged it up for him. he turned himself back around to face you, looking up at you through his eyelashes.

"I'm so sorry about that," you said.

"'Bout what?" 

"You know…" You gestured vaguely. "The alcohol sting, me overreacting, you getting hurt in the first place..." You trailed off. 

"I've had worse, and I'm sure my back was a sight." he answered. "Sure does make it better havin' you to look at, to keep my mind off the pain when I come home all beat up."

"Oh please, I'm nothing special," you said, but his line made you blush all the same.

"You're definitely somethin' special if you've stuck around me this long," he said, his tone half teasing and half something you didn't recognize. He stood up and offered his hand. You took it, letting him help you to your feet. 

"What do you mean?" you asked. You looked up at him, meeting his pretty blue gaze. 

"Girls like you don't stay 'round guys like me. I've had enough of 'em leave to know it," he answered. You took a step back and he took one forward. He smelled like sweat and earth and faint cologne and it was starting to make you dizzy. That combined with all of his bare skin, well. At least you knew he'd catch you if you fainted. 

"Well, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. At least not anywhere you can't find me," you told him. 

"Thank God for that." He paused a moment, his gaze flicking down for just a second. If you hadn't been studying his eyes you would have missed it. "Because I'm startin' to think I can't live without you."

"I do my best to keep you patched up," you said. His eyes drifted downward again, this time lingering longer. 

"You've done a little more than that." He leaned in closer, then hesitated. "You've patched me up in ways you can't even imagine."

With that, he closed what little space was left between your lips and kissed you. He kissed you soft and slow and sweet; gentle open kisses, the kind that took your breath away. He tasted like whiskey, salt, and iron, and smelled like earth before a rainstorm. He put an arm around you, pressed his hand to the small of your back, pulled you into him. You ran your hands up his bare chest and carefully wrapped your arms around his shoulders. Everything about him in this moment was so soft that you almost forgot who he was. He could have been anyone. You could have been anyone. It didn't seem to matter; in that moment you were just two people falling in love.

He broke the kiss but stayed close, his breath fanning softly over your lips. "Please don't let me run you off," he said, his voice low and a little rough. "I really don't think I could live without you, not anymore." His words felt like a confession and a prayer all at once, and you knew something would change between you. Things would be different now, and that was more than alright by you.

"You haven't so far," you reminded him. "And I don't plan on letting you get away from me that easy."

He let out a relieved sigh, put his other arm around you, and kissed you like he meant it. You couldn't imagine ever wanting to be anywhere else. He wasn't the only one who needed fixing, but you knew for sure you were both in capable hands.


End file.
